O! Confidence Fairy, Reward Me!

[lsanderson]

So the next time you hear serious-sounding people explaining the need for fiscal austerity, try to parse their argument. Almost surely, you’ll discover that what sounds like hardheaded realism actually rests on a foundation of fantasy, on the belief that invisible vigilantes will punish us if we’re bad and the confidence fairy will reward us if we’re good. And real-world policy — policy that will blight the lives of millions of working families — is being built on that foundation. Link

Comments

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Thanx. Blogging this.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the single largest -- by far -- direct & indirect employer in the U.S. is The Federal Government. When (as seems likely to be the case) it attempts to "balance the budget" it will do so by reducing the number of its employees. Those people will then not have enough money to buy even as many goods & services from private-sector businesses as they do now, so the downward spiral gets even worse.

Greater-than-average intelligence or education is not needed to recognize that this will happen, and that the effects of it will last for a long time, so something along the lines of what you describe seems to be operating among the many Conservatives who are stressing balancing the budget in that manner. Of course, the spreading Depression will have no significant effect upon the Very Wealthy, although I suppose a Balanced Budget might perk up the Stock Market -- which favorably impresses those who believe that the Stock Market has some kind of direct relationship with the real economy.